This paper examines a recent exhibition on evolution at the Australian Museum, in Sydney, and contrasts it with the museum's earlier exhibitions on the same theme, looking at the images of science each presents. The differences between the most recent display and its predecessors can be broadly grouped under three themes: the use of narrative and chronology to organize the display; the use of realistic dioramas and reconstructions; and the use of glass cases to keep the visitors and the science apart. Partly through deliberate decisions and partly through other pressures—including space, time and financial considerations—the newest exhibition has resolved some of the problems exemplified by the earlier ones. Nevertheless, other difficulties remain and the conclusion sketches some possible directions which museum designers might explore in the future.
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References
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Personal interview with Trish MacDonald, 1995. As part of this research, interviews were conducted with four members of the More than Dinosaurs project team: Bodo Matzick (the primary designer), Trish MacDonald (one of two education officers on the team), and two of the main scientists on the team: Alex Ritchie (senior palaeontologist at the Australian Museum until the end of 1995) and Greg Edgecombe (who has now replaced Alex Ritchie as senior palaeontologist). All quotes from these four are taken from tapes of the interviews.
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See also Gould, S.J., 1995, Cones and ladders: constraining evolution by canonical icons. Hidden Histories of Science, edited by R.B. Silvers (New York: New York Review Books), pp. 37-67.
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This fallacy is discussed in Gillespie, B., Eva, D., and Johnston, R., 1979, Carcinogenic risk assessment in the US and Britain. Social Studies of Science, 9, 265-301.
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The `truthfulness' of Akeley's work is also much more complex than it might initially appear. As Donna Haraway points out, Akeley chose what he called `typical' specimens for his dioramas, by which he meant physically perfect male specimens: asymmetry, injury or disease debarred an animal from being `typical'. On one occasion he even refused to shoot an elephant for a diorama because he believed that the animal was cowardly. See Haraway, D., 1989, Teddy bear patriarchy. Primate Visions: Gender, Race and Nature in the World of Modern Science (New York: Routledge), pp. 26-58. Apart from the obvious influence of culturally-determined notions of masculinity upon Akeley's conception of `typical', his thinking betrays a curious throw-back to pre-Darwinian `essentialism', the notion that a species can be defined by a single, clearly defined essence and that variation from this essence is a deviation or flaw. Needless to say, for Darwinians variation supplies the essential raw material upon which natural selection operates. It could be said, then, that variation is the main `truth' of biology and, in many respects, Akeley's `typical' specimens are a fraud.
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Eco, U. , 1995. Faith in Fakes: Travels in Hyperreality (London: Minerva), p. 7.
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Quoted in Milner, R., 1995, Portraits of prehistory. Natural History, 104(12), December, 47.
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MacDonald, Sharon , 1995, Consuming science: public knowledge and the dispersed politics of reception among museum visitors. Media, Culture and Society, 17, 21.
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Both quotes are from the text of the Tracks Through Time exhibition.
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Interestingly, Ritchie remembers the dioramas as having cost A$7000. (around£3200) each, and asserts that, far from being given an acquisitions budget, he has always had to arrange fund-raising himself.
38.
See, for example, Ritchie, A., 1987, Testimony of the rocks, or geology versus the `Flood'. Confronting Creationism, Defending Darwin, edited by D. R. Selkirk and F. J. Burrows (Sydney: UNSW Press), pp. 49-72.
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Gould, S. J. , 1989, Wonderful Life: the Burgess Shale and the Meaning of History (Hutchinson, London), pp. 194-206.
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Quote from the text of More than Dinosaurs. Edgecombe comments that the Anomalocaris reconstruction which accompanies this text is already out of date, as new fossils have been discovered since it was completed. Personal interview with Greg Edgecombe, 1996.
41.
An additional complicating factor for a museum attempting to balance the presentation of scientific facts with an accurate description of the scientific process, is that science museums tend to see their role as being advocates for science (especially at a time when they believe that many people hold `anti-science' opinions). Given such perceptions, museum staff may see an emphasis on scientific error and uncertainty as unhelpful to the `cause' of science. Precisely this issue arose at London's Science Museum during debates over the inclusion of a section on food poisoning within an exhibition on food science and technology. Some museum staff saw the emphasis on food poisoning as inappropriate, on the assumption that the Museum's role was to be unambiguously pro-science. MacDonald, S., and Silverstone, R., 1992, Science on display: the representation of scientific controversy in museum exhibitions. Public Understanding of Science, 1, 82.
42.
Personal interview with Trish MacDonald, 1995.
43.
Robert Jones is another of the Museum's palaeontologists. Both Jones and Edgecombe were members of the More than Dinosaurs Project Team.
44.
A sophisticated model of such interactions is provided by Gillespie, B., Eva, D., and Johnston, R., 1979, Carcinogenic risk assessment in the US and Britain. Social Studies of Science, 9, 265-301.
45.
As part of the research, the Museum's archives on Tracks Through Time and More than Dinosaurs were studied in detail; however, much of the material they contain was not useful because it is undated and in most cases the authors of documents are not identified. This is not surprising, since the Museum's archivists are primarily concerned with recording financial and policy decisions, not with the esoteric issues discussed in this essay.
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Shapin, S. , 1984, Talking history. Isis, 75, 125-128.
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I am grateful to David Miller, at UNSW, for drawing this to my attention (personal communication, 27 March 1996).
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Haraway, D. , 1989, Teddy bear patriarchy. Primate Visions: Gender, Race and Nature in the World of Modern Science (New York: Routledge), p. 29.
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Gilbert and Mulkay make precisely this point in Gilbert, G. N., and Mulkay, M., 1984, Opening Pandora's Box: a Sociological Analysis of Scientist's Discourse (Cambridge University Press).
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Gould, S. J. , 1995, Dinomania. Dinosaur in a Haystack (New York: Harmony Books), pp. 221-237.
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Jardine, N. , Secord, J. A., and Spary, E. C., 1996, Cultures of Natural History (Cambridge University Press), p. 455.
